IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer

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Deploy parachute! We're coming in for a very, very hard landing!

By Levi Buchanan

From Bethesda Softworks comes IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer, one of the first network-able games for handsets. You know, those devices that are already on-line and require no extra peripherals to do so? It's good to finally see developers take advantage of the cellphone platform's biggest plus, but you can't just marry on-line play to any game and hope for a winner&#Array;

Features:

Head-to-head play over network

IHRA licensed

Up to 32 cars

Parachutes

And such is the case with IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer, one of the more boring racing games you'll play on your handset. When you think racing game, you imagine negotiating turns with wicked powersiled, rubbing against the competition to make 'em spin out, and an incredible sensation of speed. Not driving in a straight line. And only in a straight line.

But such is the sport of drag racing. Real IHRA drag racing is actually pretty fun to watch. There's a visceral thrill to watching the cars rev 'til they can rev no more, knowing that winning or losing can be decided within a tenth of second. And then there's the parachute. Yeah, going so fast that brakes alone won't do the trick.

None of this translates well to a video game. It didn't with Activision's 2600 drag racer, and it's doesn't with IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer. Players simply start the game, select their car, and appear on the track. First, you gotta rev your engine and approach the starting line, which is done simply by pressing "up" on the control pad or stick. Let go after one or two seconds -- warming your engine up, but not overdoing it and creeping past the starting line.

Next, you tap "up" to accelerate. But you don't hold "up," you simply press the "ok" button (or comparable button your phone) to shift a couple times. Use "left" and "right" to maintain a straight line, but be careful not to oversteer -- which is so easy to do it's annoying. Hit the wall and go boom. Cross into the other racer's lane and you're DQ'd. And when you hit the finish line, press "ok" again to deploy your parachute. Which is the best part of the game. Kinda sad, huh?

But it does have the multiplayer element going for it. It's kind of a pain, though, to find a competitor. We fired the game up on a Samsung N400 -- admittedly not the most powerful of cells, but a popular one -- and waited forever for another player to join in. You see, we had to actually wait for a player that had selected the same racing class and car. Apparently, on some of the buffer handsets, like the Nokia 3650 (which has32 cars to choose from, not the paltry six on the N400), you can race against drivers in the same class, regardless of which rod your choose.

The versions that support 32 cars also include a shop where you buy car upgrades with points earned during races. New tires, different chassis, bigger engine -- all your if you manage to put away your patience and rack up enough points.

Contributing to IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer's blah vibe are the visuals. On the N400, the game looked terrible. The smoke from your tires was just a white, formless cloud of pixels. Things look a little better, and more colorful, on better models. No matter what, though, the perspective is a killer. You sit way behind the car, so you only look at the rear-end as it speeds down the straightaway. No feeling of speed can be had from this angle in IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer. Too bad there isn't a side-view.

Having actually been to a professional drag race, we can tell you that they are obnoxiously loud affairs. IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer is not. It's as silent as classroom after somebody farted. Perhaps with all the code that went into the multiplayer feature, there was little room for vroom.

The Verdict

IHRA Drag Racing Multiplayer isn't a bad game, per se. Just a boring one. Which can sometimes be even more deadly. With bad games, you can delight in how bad the developer screwed up. With this, there's just a feeling of "eh" after a couple of plays. The multiplayer aspect is good to see happen in mobile gaming (and this is why the N-Gage has an excellent chance of succeeding), but it's trapped in an otherwise dull game. Hardcore dragster fans might check this out, but all others save your green for a Sorrent's FOX Sports Racing.